Rack or tray for shelves



Jufiy l0, H, FAY ET AL 2,569,351

RACK OR TRAY FOR SHELVES Filed Oct. 1, 1946 INVENTOR3 Wm-old C. 70g 61 By Carnelziw Jflonozran/ Patented July 10, 1951 UNITED STATES ATENT OFFICE RACK on TRAY FOR SHELVES Harold C. Fay, Floral Park, and Cornelius J. Donovan, Bronxville, N. Y.

Application-October 1, 1946, Serial No. 700,584

2 Claims. 1

This invention relates to racks or trays forus upon shelves, and particularly for the shelves of various kinds of storage cabinets, kitchen cabinets, medicine cabinets and the like, and, for use 'in'various other environments wherein numerous small articles, bottles, jars or the like are.

contained.

One of the problems encountered in storing a number of articles upon a shelf, and especially when the articles are of assorted sizes, is the keeping of the articles arranged in an orderly 'manner so that any desired article or articles will keep small flat articles at the front of the shelf,

with larger or taller articles, such as bottles, to the rear. Very often however, the user of a tall article will remove it from the rear of a shelf and after using it, will place it upon the forward portion of the shelf in front of small articles and often, upon'pushing the larger article toward the rear of the shelf, will push the smaller article to the rear and thus cause the latter to become hidden or obscured by the larger and taller article placed in front of it. The result is that in many cabinets and other storage containers, a

general mix-up of the contents occurs, making it it diflicult and time-consuming for the user to find and select any desired article from the many articles arranged in confusion on the shelf.

The present invention therefore contemplates the provision of a rack or tray adapted to be placed upon the top of a shelf situated in a cabinet'or elsewhere, said rack or tray tending to maintain various articles in arrangement or 'orderly rows and keeping the various articles held and displayed in such a manner that any one article in the rack can not only be selected and removed from the rack at any time, but can be readily and conveniently replaced in the position from which it was taken.

The invention contemplates the provision of a rack or tray which will hold the articlesplaced upon it, in an inclined position, with those toward the rear of the tray held elevated above those at the front; it contemplates the provision of such a rack which, while holding the articles as above described, will not encroach upon thespace between two shelves or materially reduce such space; it further contemplates the provision of means by which articles placed upon it will tend to slide rearwardly, thus decreasing the possibility of bottles or other articles being pushed 2 y from the front part of the shelf and falling to the floor and becoming broken.

Another object of the invention is to provide a rack or tray which can be installed upon a shelf without the use of tools and which when installed, will keep the contents of the shelf in a tidy and orderly arrangement. a

In the accompanying drawing, wherein an illustrative embodiment of the invention is disclosed, Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a portion of a rack or tray constructed in accordance with the invention and in place upon a shelf; Fig. 2 is a transverse sectional view through the rack or tray, showingthemanner in which a plurality of articles are supported upon the same; Fig.- 3 is a top plan view of a rack or tray composed of two overlapping adjustable sections to enable the tray to be fitted to shelves of various lengths, and Fig. 4 is a sectional view of a portion of the rack or tray, showing a modified construction.

The rack or tray forming the subject matter of the present inventionmay be made from various materials and probably most effectively from a piece of light sheet metal pressed into the proper shape by a single stamping operation. In the form shown, the rack or tray is formed with a plurality of steps, indicated at I to 4 inclusive in the drawing. The number of these steps; the width and angularity of the supporting surfaces thereof and the size of the rack or tray generally, is dependent upon the shelf upon which the rack or tray is to be placed and the nature of the articles intended to be accommodated by the rack or tray. It will therefore be apparent that while the illustrated rack or tray shows four steps, this number may beincreased or decreased accordingly.

At the front end, the rack or tray is formed with a downwardly extended flange 5, the lower edge 6 thereof resting upon the top of the shelf 1. The flange 5constitutes a riser portion for the front step Lsaid step including the supporting surface 8, upon which articles II are rested as clearly seen in Fig. 2.

It is to be noted that the supportingsurface 8 inclines downwardly toward the rear and to the point 9, which rests against the top of the shelf, and this rearward inclination or angularity of the horizontal supporting surface 8 is such as to hold the articles placed upon it in a tilted or inclined position. Moreover, the angularity of the surface 3 is such that any articles placed upon it will tend to slide rearwardly to come into contact with a vertical wall l0, constituting a riser for the second step 2. Since there is a tendency for the articles to slide rearwardly, the same will tend to move away from the forward edge of the shelf 1 so that the likelihood of the articles falling forward and off the shelf is remote.

The riser in for the step 2 is of greater height than the front riser 5 and it will be observed that riser I9 is substantially at right angles to the supporting surface 8 of the first step. The result of this arrangement is that an article I I placed upon the supporting surface 8 will rest squarely against the riser l0 and :be supported against th riser.

The supporting surface l2 of the second step 2 is at a sharper angle than that of the surface 8 so that the articles [3 resting on the surface l2 will be supported at the angle defined by the surface l2. As a result, when two articles of the same height are supported respectively upon the surfacesB and [2, the rearmost article, or that indicated at l3, will have its upper end located slightly above the upper end of the front article, or that indicated at H.

This is shown by the dotted line M in Fig. 2.

The riser H3 at the rear end of the supporting surface i2, and constituting the front end of the step-3, is of greater height than riser Ill and this tends to pitch the supporting surface iii of the step 3 at a sharper angle than the angles of the two forward steps 2 and I. The result is that articles ll, placed upon the supporting surface 16, although of the same height as those on the two forward steps land 2 will have their tops projecting slightly above those on the forward steps of the rack. This is again indicated by the dotted line H in Fig. 2. Riser [8 at the rear of the supporting surface I6 is of greater height than that indicated at 15, and said riser forms the forward end of rear supporting step 4, which has a fiat, horizontally disposed supporting face l9 terminating at its rear end in the downwardly-bent flange 28', said flange having its lower edge resting upon the top of the shelf 7. Articles placed on the surface l9 will of course be elevatedabove those resting; upon the steps I to 3 inclusive.

It will be noted that from the description given, a plurality of articles may be supported on the steps of the rack, and While these articles may all be of the same relative height, those toward the rear of the rack will rise slightly above those at the front, despite the fact that the rack is only slightly higher at the rear than at its front. The shallowness of the rack, as far as its height is concerned, is of importance, for the reason that while it displays the articles held by it in such a manner that even those articles atthe rear can be seen when the rack is viewed at eye level, it nevertheless is not bodily maintained at such an angle. as to usurp a great deal of the space between shelves. That is to say, articles normally placed upon a shelf without a rack of this kind can usually be placed upon the rack without contacting with the under side of the shelf located above them.

In using the device, it is placed upon the top of, a shelf in a cabinet or other container and it may, if desired, be fixedly secured in any desired position upon the top of the shelf by means of suitable clips, such as the angle brackets 2| in Fig. 1, said brackets being secured to the shelf by means of the screws 22 or by other equivalent fastening means. If the shelf is composed of metal, the fastening devices can .be arranged to hook over the forward edge of the shelf and thus hold the rack from shifting.

In order to accommodate these racks to shelves of various lengths, the racks may be made in two or more telescoping or overlapping sections as indicated at 23 and 24 in Fig. 3. By overlapping the sections of the rack to the required extent, the length of the rack may be regulated accordingly.

It will be noted in Fig. 1 that in order to add strength and rigidity to the rack, the points of merger of the horizontal supporting surfaces of the steps with the risers, which points are indicated at 9, 25 and 26, rest upon the top of the shelf, so that the rack is not only supported upon the front and back flanges 5 and 2B, but upon the parts 9, 25 and 26 as well. The result of this arrangement is that the rack can be made from relatively thin metal, yet will be rigid and strong and capable of supporting the weight of many articles placed upon it. While it is desirable to support the rack at the several points 9, 25 and 26 it is not absolutely essential that this be done. For example, in Fig. 4, the point 9 is shown as slightly raised above the supporting surface I and this can, if desired, be the case with the points 25 and 26. In this embodiment also, the risers may be provided at thei bases with a longitudinally extending indented channel 21. These channels will serve to accommodate the bead 28 often found at the bottoms of various cream jars and other containers.

When a rack or tray of the kind described is placed upon a shelf, it tends to segregate the various articles into groups which are placed upon the several steps of the rack. The manner in which the articles are supported in tilted relation, enables those at the rear of the rack to be readily seen and any one article removed from the rack will leave a space for its replacement. sinc the risers on the various steps limit the rearward movement of articles placed on each step, rearward displacement of any particular article will not occur. That is to say, any article placed upon one of the supporting surfaces cannot be slid rearwardly to any of the other surfaces. As is well known, the tendency of the user of any article taken from a shelf, and even from the rear portion of the shelf is, when returning the article to the shelf, to replace it on the front part of the shelf, thus forcing some article or articles then located at the forward part of the shelf, to the rear. With this arrangement, each article has its own place and its restoration thereto, after having been used, is simple, since the space from which the article was taken, is always available without requiring articles in front of it to be moved aside. The result is that the articles placed on a rack or tray of this character will be held in orderly and tidy array; will be readily accessible to the user, and may be easily replaced after having been used.

While I have described an embodiment of the invention, it will be apparent that various changes may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. While the rack or tray has been described as being made from a single sheetmetal stamping, it is obvious that the same may be moulded from plastic or made in many other ways. Also while the ends of the rack are shown as being open in order to more readily disclose construction, these ends may be closed if desired. The number of supporting steps; the angularity of the same and various other features are capable of alteration, all of which is intended to be comprehended by the scope of the claims appended hereto.

What we claim is:

1. A rack or tray for supporting articles upon a shelf, said rack being rested upon the surface of the shelf and rising only slightly above the same, said rack, having a series of steps provided with inclined surfaces, each of said surfaces inclining downwardly in a direction toward the rear of the rack, said inclined surfaces increasing progressively in steepness toward the rear of the rack, the front end or riser of each of the steps increasing in height toward the rear of the rack, and said risers being disposed substantially at right angles to the supporting surfaces of the steps.

2. A rack or tray for shelves comprising, a tray having a plurality of steps provided with inclined supporting surfaces upon which articles are rested, said steps being connected by risers disposed substantially at right angles to the supporting surfaces, the risers progressively increasing in height from the front of the tray to the rear of the same, the front and rear of the tray being provided with down-bent flanges upon which the tray is supported, the rear flange being of a height only slightly more than the height of the front flange, the junctions between the lower ends of the risers and the rear ends of the supporting surfaces being in horizontal alignment with the lower edges of the flanges so that said junctions rest against the surface upon which the rack is supported.

HAROLD C. FAY. CORNELIUS J. DONOVAN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 183,530 Birge Oct. 24, 1876 263,591 Roeder, Sr. Aug. 29, 1882 814,438 Franke Mar. 6, 1906 1,470,159 Gibson Oct. 9, 1923 1,758,098 Williams May 13, 1930 1,848,890 Kennedy Mar. 8, 1932 1,917,005 Anderson et al. July 14, 1933 2,067,051 Hall Jan. 5, 1937 2,103,241 Bell Dec. 28, 1937 

